Kraftwerk's Computer World

Description

Kraftwerk’s most concise and focused conceptual statement, Computer World, was also their most influential album, paving the way for a range of new musical styles and genres. This book explores the band’s revolutionary sonic template, and their lyrical obsessions in detail. An analysis of the bands work reveals a unifying theme, overlooked by other writers, of movement and transition. While many remarked on the prevalence of travel within Kraftwerk’s art: Autobahn (1974) – cars, Trans-Europe Express (1977) – trains, The Man- Machine (1978) – space, and Tour De France (1982) – bicycles, Francis contends that this is a surface manifestation of a deeper theoretical subtext in their work. Movement is really a reflection of the concept of transition, through time and space, from one physical, emotional, or existential state of being to another. The book explores transition, as expressed on Computer World, via theories of post-humanism, cybernetics and the anthropology of transnationalism. This book is about legendary German band Kraftwerk and their masterpiece from 1981, Computer World. The album was the band’s most concise and focused conceptual statement, their most influential record and crowning achievement. Upon release, the record was a revelation. It was unlike anything created for mainstream consumers of music at that time, an electronic suite of assured and industrious propulsive forward movement. On Computer World, Kraftwerk stand on the brink of a world at the very beginning of the fundamental, revolutionary, tectonic technological transformation of everyday life. It was a change wrought and engineered through human ingenuity, and a combination of science, business and government, a change heralding good fortune and opportunity, as well as problems and difficulties. The album is Kraftwerk’s attempt to understand this burgeoning new world from the point of view of the consumer, who desires the products of this new technology. For a band that started in free-jazz experimentation in the art precincts and galleries of Düsseldorf, centre of nothing at all in the world of music, Kraftwerk ended up influencing whole musical genres, and in the process, becoming revered international treasures, something underlined by their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Computer World would transformed the way pop music was composed, played, packaged and released, and in the process, helped create entire new genres of music including hip-hop, techno, trance, electro, industrial, and synth-pop. They influenced the influencers. The band delivered a sonic detonation that is still being felt today. Cover Praise Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Track Listing Computer World Tour 1981–1982 Set List Kraftwerk’s Albums and EPs Acknowledgements 1 Advancement Through Technology 2 Painting with Sound 3 Fluxus to Future1 4 Kling Klang Produkt 5 Folk Music of the Factories 6 Speak & Spell 7 By pressing down a special key . . . 8 Planet Rock 9 Another Lonely Night . . . 10 Here’s to the Crazy Ones1 11 Neon Lights References Also available in the series